Mixed Metaphors
by ya-fic
Summary: In a dining hall filled with hors d'oeuvres, Watson was a home-cooked meal. Where most were meager and unsatisfying, she was substantial and hearty.
1. Mixed Metaphors

_**Author's Note: **_This is my first Elementary fic. I have no idea where it's going. That isn't normally how I write, but it feels okay for this story. Please share any feedback you may have-it will be greatly appreciated.

**Mixed Metaphors**

In a dining hall filled with hors d'oeuvres, Watson was a home-cooked meal. Where most were meager and unsatisfying, she was substantial and hearty. But like the comfort food found on the tables of the most loving families, Watson could also overwhelm the palate and, when consumed in excess, become an indulgent toxin to the system. Holmes, therefore, sampled sparingly: a measured taste here, a careful nibble there. With time the temptation turned into a gnawing, nagging hunger that he persistently resisted to preserve his natural leanness and to purposefully delay any potential gratification.

The metaphor made one corner of Holmes' mouth quirk up between chews of his crunchy cereal. He sat alone at the kitchen table and didn't hesitate to allow his brain to become saturated with thoughts of her. Yesterday, she was a pair of designer jeans. Last week, a piano. Before that, some well worn trainers. The other side of the smile formed when he observed that he cast himself in the role of the model, the player, the runner and, on this morning, the diner. He shoveled in another bite.

"What are you plotting?"

"Pardon?" he asked as he chomped through his mouthful of cereal.

As she covered the open space between them, he noticed she was characteristically exposed in her sleepwear. Her feet were bare and her legs were left nearly entirely uncovered by her shorts. Her v-neck shirt was so loose it fell off her shoulder, but her dark hair hid the pale skin of her neck. She was never shy, but always modest so Holmes had enough sense to collect these details without detection lest she dig up some prudish robe to protect herself from his perusals. His appreciation was not, of course, perverse. Watson was the work of Vincent Van Gough: beautiful, unique and entirely underappreciated contemporarily.

"You heard me," she accused.

While he had, indeed, heard her question, he was quite surprised he hadn't heard her coming; she was more of a hurricane than a gentle breeze. That wasn't entirely true. She had her share of zephyr-like qualities. She was the wind: sometimes gentle and delicate, sometimes destructive and demanding.

"That look on your face. That, dare I say, smile? It was pure mischief," Watson told him as she leaned back against the countertop next to the sink. "And, actually, it's still there."

Holmes gave her a look of deliberate incredulity then lifted his bowl to his lips and slurped down the leftover milk.

"Seriously," she began as she folded her arms and stared him down. She was a microscope and she was focused on him. "What are you up to?"

"Mixing metaphors." He shared the matter of fact as he stood and walked past her to lay his bowl in the sink. He glanced over at her and hid his smile, though he knew she would still see it in his eyes. "Seriously."

As he washed his dish, he could feel the heat of her laser eyes, scanning and scrutinizing every move. She knew he never cleaned up after breakfast so this bit of tidying had her locked on. Another blip surely sounded as he caught himself clearing his throat for a third time: a tell-tale sign of nervousness. She may not have yet fully developed her skill at "solving" people, but when it came to reading him, Holmes considered Watson to be a top scholar. She was, perhaps, the only person on the planet even interested in the literature.

"You said you're mixing metaphors," she reminded him. "Would you care to elaborate?"

"Would you care to dry?" he countered as he shoved the wet bowl into her hands.

She glared, but picked up a dish towel from the counter and rubbed the vessel dry. She held it out and he obliged, taking it and stowing it away in an otherwise unoccupied cabinet.

"Well?" she questioned with the desired amount of impatience.

He pushed his lips together and forced air through his nose then did a right face. She turned toward him, smiling, he knew, because she'd won. He would confess his thoughts.

"If you must know, Watson, I was thinking of you."

Her eyes narrowed just slightly and her head tipped no more than a degree to the left. Catching her off guard was a feat since her temper was a well-defended armory, it's soldiers regimented and controlled. Except when she chose to succcomb to her anger. Then she was the commander on the battlefield. She took charge and her warriors were vicious and unrelenting.

"You see, when left with my thoughts as I was this morning, and when my mind wanders to you-also as it did this morning-I've taken to comparing you to... things."

"Comparing me?"

"Yes."

"To things?"

"Precisely."

"A summer's day perhaps?"

"Perhaps not. You're nothing like a summer's day, Watson," he assured her. "You're more of a winter's morning."

"You're saying I'm cold and icy and dreary?"

"I'm saying you're pure and crisp and... full of promise."

Her scoff was light then she smiled. "Okay, I get it. You're messing with me."

Before he could honestly deny or dishonestly confirm the accusation, Watson pushed off the counter and sat herself down in the chair Holmes had previously occupied. She folded her arms and looked up at him. "Now I'm wondering if this is the mischief you were planning or if it's a distraction."

Holmes chuckled. The noise was uncharacteristic and sounded strange to his own ear. He liked it. He also liked very much her reaction to his laugh: she glared.

"Watson, I can assure you that I was up to nothing more than drawing comparisons."

"Fine. Let's pretend I believe you. If not a summer's day, then to what were you comparing me?"

"A home-cooked meal."

It was Watson's turn to chuckle. "So, basically, I'm bad for you."

"Quite the opposite," he promised as he walked over to her. "Have we not previously been over that? I distinctly recall admitting that I am better with you by my side."

"When I think of home-cooking," she explained, "I think of something... tasty, but-"

"I am unable to comment on your... tastiness," he stated with a put-on grimace-y sort of frown.

She ignored him and finished the thought. "Tasty, but also ultimately harmful to your health. High in fat and sugar. Bad for your heart."

"But good for my soul, Watson. So very good for my soul," he told her with his eyes locked on hers.

She inhaled then exhaled deeply, never breaking eye contact. She was a filter. He could see that his pretense was sorted out and the truth was snagged. He realized he hadn't even considered what that truth might be. He was excited; he was very interested to learn what she had deduced. Perhaps she would teach him something about himself.

She smiled, her look soft. "Thank you, Sherlock."

"For my comparison?"

"For your friendship," she said, "and for appreciating mine. I know you would never admit that our relationship has evolved beyond associates-"

"If you would prefer I introduce you as-"

"You can introduce me however you want, but what we are... is friends."

Sherlock Holmes did not have friends-at least, not in the traditional sense. Last he'd checked his own catalogue, Waston was classified as his partner, but, truthfully, he had stopped assigning any sort of label to her quite some time ago. It had not occurred to him that the reason for this was that she fit a description he had never needed to define before. His mind quickly made up for the oversight.

"Watson, I've just concluded that you are, in fact, not my friend."

She rolled her eyes. "Whatever you say," she agreed dismissively.

As she got up and tried to escape the kitchen, Holmes caught hold of her arm.

"Hold on," he instructed, "I wasn't quite finished."

She snatched her arm out of his grip then questioned, "What? Were you going to compare me to potato chips or a circus or late night television?"

"Don't be absurd," he demanded. "You've nothing in common with any of those things."

"Right, I'm the one who's absurd."

"Ah, I see, you're angry."

"No," she denied.

"Insulted."

She shrugged and folded her arms.

"Okay. You're insulted. But you need not be,Watson, because all I was trying to say is that I think our relationship has evolved, as you put it, beyond mere friendship."

This time she made no effort to hide surprise. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying, Watson, that you are more than a friend."

She laughed without opening her mouth. "Bye, Sherlock."

"I'm not implying anything inappropriate."

Nearly out of the room, she turned around. "Then what are you implying?"

"I am stating, quite directly, that you, Joan Watson, are my first and only... best friend."


	2. Best Friends

**Best Friends?**

Joan stared at him. When she looked into his eyes, she saw clarity and no obvious signs of drug use. That was expected, but still satisfying for her as his former sober companion. She quickly took in details that might tell her that this was, indeed, Sherlock standing before her. Salt and pepper stubble that was always there, but never seemed to turn into a full beard? Check. Dark brown hair that was meant to look accidentally messy, but always had the subtle stiffness created by the purposeful application of hair gel? Yep. Stupid ironic t-shirt that he claimed never implied anything, but often revealed subconscious hints about his mood? Uh huh. Present in a shade of obnoxious orange with "Truth or Dare?" printed across the chest. Interesting.

So it was really him. And had she heard him correctly? She was his best friend? Though she had been the one to qualify their relationship as such, she wasn't even totally sure Sherlock Holmes was capable of consciously forming meaningful friendships-much less best friendships. He had associates that he called upon when he needed their services or skills-together they formed a menu from which he ordered what he wanted-but did he truly have any idea of the emotional reciprocative requirements for friendship?

Perhaps he did. Or perhaps it was only by circumstance or accident that Sherlock had, for all intents and purposes, fulfilled those friendship requisites over the month that had passed since Moriarty, since he'd named a bee after her in appreciation of her work. Between then and now, they had only worked on cold cases and only at their leisure. In between, Sherlock had trained Joan in a variety of skills necessary for their trade: lockpicking, hot wiring, simple digital surveillance and power napping-to name a few. But along with each session had come unprecedented, unsolicited, unguarded conversation. Where before he was evasive and, at times, deceitful, he was now forthcoming and, she hoped, completely honest.

She had learned about his boyhood misadventures at his family's English countryside estate, his teenage mischief at his private boarding school and, finally, his adult immersion into the art of deduction that began in London and continued with her here in New York. He had not often brought up the topic of his father, but he'd answered each question Joan had asked, and she started to understand why Sherlock had the issues he had.

The elder Holmes put himself first and always sought the highest bidder so the younger served the greater good at the lowest cost-often pro bono. Holmes the senior was always on the move, constantly travelling from country to country for business so the junior, while kinetic in manner, liked to put down roots in one country, one city, one neighborhood, and now one brownstone-for as long as possible. The father Holmes was incapable of love of any kind so the son allowed himself to be full of passion-sometimes detrimentally so.

That was what surprised her the most about Sherlock. He was a turtle with a hard, impenetrable shell that he could climb into and seal off at will. Inside, beneath the fortress, he was soft and vulnerable. With time and trust he would peek out and, eventually, expose more and more of himself.

Sherlock wasn't the only one who could craft metaphors.

"Hello, Watson? You still with me?"

Sherlock snapped his fingers and waved his hand in front of her face. Joan blinked and realized this mental retrospective of her time with Sherlock had hit her as she stood before him in the kitchen.

"I had no intention of shocking you into a vertical coma," Sherlock told her. "Are you alright?"

To be acknowledged, even by way of ironic denial, as a friend was unexpected, but to be named Sherlock's best friend was, as he'd put it, shocking. It had been a long time since she'd even come close to filling that role for anyone.

"I'm fine," she promised.

"Yet you wear the dopey grin of a child on Christmas morning," Holmes observed.

"Is that another metaphor?"

Sherlock shrugged. "Dunno. If you're the child on Christmas morning then I'm the gift, and I'm not sure I'm entirely comfortable with that parallel."

"There are different kinds of gifts."

"There are indeed," he agreed as he slid down into a dining room chair, "and I'm a pair of socks."

"Socks aren't a terrible present," she argued as she pulled out a chair for herself, scooting it closer to him.

"They're utilitarian," he countered.

"And sometimes colorful," she said as she glanced down at his own multi-colored, stripey socks then back up at him. "And warm on a winter's morning."

She saw the glint in his eye as she referred back to his previous words.

"See, Watson, metaphors are fun."

She tilted her head in resistant agreement.

"And useful at drawing connections where they may not otherwise be noticed in order to extend a situation to gain further understanding," he continued. "An imperative skill for a good detective to have."

"Oh no. Was this all just an elaborate setup for today's lesson?"

"Not at all, but it presents the opportunity for us to indirectly explore our new found best friendship," he explained.

"I never actually agreed to a mutual version of that qualification," Joan told him with a tone she hoped would communicate that she could see him as nothing else.

"At this point, Watson, it would seem your options are a bit limited. You can choose from myself, Captain Gregson, Lieutenant Bell... or, I suppose, Clyde."

"I do like turtles," she said as she smiled to herself.

"Clyde is a tortoise."

"But you're a turtle," she told him and enjoyed the curious raise of his eyebrows. It was difficult to be a step ahead of Sherlock Holmes and so she fully enjoyed the one second she was.

He narrowed his eyes as he caught on.

"You're hard on the outside and you have excellent defenses, but inside you're something else entirely."

"How could you know that? There's only room for one in the shell," he argued.

"But sometimes you come out. All on your own. I see you then... and what I can't see, I deduce."

He smiled. "This is going to be an entertaining exercise."


	3. Turn-On Trifecta

**Author's Note:** Thank you to everyone who has commented on, favorited or followed this story. It's encouraging and I hope you continue to enjoy it. Trying to get 'shippy within canon is tough so I apologize if I fail at either or both :)

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**Turn-On Trifecta**

Verbal swordplay easily placed in the top three of Sherlock Holmes' turn-ons, and it quickly rotated to number one once he was properly engaged. He rarely found a woman-or any person, for that matter-who could keep up with his wit. On this morning, though, as they entered the study together, Watson was certainly in the race.

As for which traits presently ranked silver and bronze in the turn-on category, Holmes thought carefully. While it would seem shallow to some to admit it, he could not deny the part physical beauty played in sexual appeal. It was not at all unique to him as a male, as a human being or even as a member of the animal kingdom. It was a simple fact of biology and no amount of sapience could rationalize it away.

Holmes stood in the doorway as Watson sat herself down on the sofa and drew one leg beneath her while the other dangled above the floor. Though she was angled slightly away from him, Holmes could still see that she'd closed her eyes. She inhaled then exhaled slowly, no doubt to center herself for whatever she was imagining he had in mind to teach her today. Little did she know, this lesson would be fully improvised and might never start at all if he couldn't manage to derail his own train of tangent thought.

"Should I get dressed?" she asked.

The little collision with reality jostled, but did not throw him off course completely.

"Unnecessary," he replied, "but as you wish."

Another simple and impossible to deny fact was that despite her ill-fitting, makeshift pajamas; even with her messy, unstyled locks; regardless of her lack of make up-or maybe because of it all-Watson was breathtakingly beautiful.

"I'll be back," she stated simply as she got up and exited the room.

Holmes stood where he was and listened as her feet hit each creaky stair and loose floorboard that led to her bedroom. From there he did not attempt to deduce her further actions; she deserved a bit of privacy every once in awhile. Or perhaps it was the third element in his turn-on trifecta that held him back.

Behind, before or perhaps along with banter and beauty, Holmes very much valued mystery. Since so much was so easy to figure out, that which went unsolved teased him much more than even the most erotic of foreplay. When it came to the details, Watson was easy enough to read, but on a grander scale, in nearly every respect, he had not even begun to understand her. She was not a puzzle to figure out-that metaphor had been explored ad nauseum with the villainous Moriarty. Instead, she was a complete and total mystery that he hoped she might one day allow him to solve. His patience should have felt peculiar as he normally found himself fervently barrelling through cases, but in _this_ case, he actually enjoyed his ignorance immensely.

Watson appeared at the bottom of the stairs so unnoticed by Holmes that she startled him when she spoke his name. "Sherlock?"

He blinked and shook his head.

"Vertical coma?" she questioned with smugness that made up for her lack of smile.

"I was meditating," he lied.

She kept her suspicious eyes on him as she made her way back to her seat on the sofa. She was still barefoot, but had traded the shorts for black denim leggings. Above the waist, she wore a dark tank top beneath a loose, sheer blouse.

Watson pulled both legs onto the sofa and leaned back against its dusty arm. This gave them both a more direct line of sight on each other. She arched an eyebrow and her scrutiny made him fidget. He cleared his throat then damned himself for it.

"Now that you are sufficiently clothed," he began as he dramatically dragged his eyes down her body then met her gaze once more, "shall we begin?"

"Sure," she replied as she combed her fingers through her hair to work out a tangle.

The fact that Holmes did not find himself more attracted to Watson did defy a certain sort of logic. Perhaps it was not lack of desire that kept the possibility from his mind. Instead, he supposed, it was fear. Fear of rejection. Fear of acceptance. Both were equally terrifying.

Or maybe, Holmes considered as he watched Watson gather and twirl her hair into a makeshift bun at the back if her head, he respected his partner too much to objectify her in the manner needed for the full realization of attraction. If he truly noticed the manicured nails, slender digits or soft strength of her deft surgeon hands, he may want to hold them. If he looked too closely at the curve of her now bare neck, the raise of her delicate collarbone, or the natural pink tone of her saliva-moistened lips, he may feel inclined to kiss them. If he actually observed the way her clothes both accentuated and hid the shape of her well-sculpted figure, he may desire to remove them.

As she secured her hair with a sharpened yellow pencil, Holmes wondered just how preposterous his current meta-awareness was, how it could potentially and detrimentally impact his typically keen powers of awareness, and just where the hell she had found that pencil. He took a seat in an armchair and stared at her.

"What?" she wanted to know.

"Where did you get that pencil?"

"Where do you think I got it?" she questioned back with a tone that sounded rhetorical.

"I haven't a clue," he replied, "which is why I asked."

"You haven't... Excuse me, but did you just say that _you,_ Sherlock Holmes, 'haven't a clue' about something?"

"Yes, well, you distracted me," he told her then disguised a throat clear as a cough.

"I distracted you?"

"Precisely," he agreed with a single nod as he drummed his fingers against his thigh one at a time.

"How did I manage to distract you?" she asked. "All I did was walk into the room."

"Your presence-your very existence-is a distraction, Watson."


	4. Like a Bee

**Like a Bee**

Her existence was a distraction. Joan tried to find his meaning, but landed on nothing except another read of his idiotic orange t-shirt: "Truth or Dare?" It summed up their work together pretty well now that she considered the phrase beyond its juvenile implications. They searched for facts; they took risks. Joan wondered which of those two paths Sherlock was leading her down at the moment.

As she examined his face for a hint, she noticed that although he wore a shade of orange so hideous it would never be flattering on anyone, the sunlight that filtered through the brownstone windows reflected off his apparel and created the illusion of a flame that seemed to flicker from beneath his skin. This faux inner glow gave him a certain look that she couldn't exactly dismiss as entirely unattractive. Weird.

In fact, Joan had found him troublingly-it rotated between handsome, hot and just plain adorable-since they'd first met. This was different, though. On a scale from cute to dashing, this hit somewhere right around... distracting. Interesting. Surely, though, his own comment was aimed at a different target.

"I'm sorry, but I'm confused, Sherlock. How can I be a distraction when just a few minutes ago you said that you were better with me by your side?"

"You're not by my side at the moment, though, are you, Watson?" he questioned and glanced off to his right as if in search of a companion.

Joan swung her feet down to the floor and slid forward on the couch, grabbing her knees.

"Not spatially," she gave him, "but in every other aspect, I assure you, I am very much right there next to you."

She looked at him searchingly. He avoided eye contact. Odd. Sherlock was always awkward, but rarely nervous. Nonetheless, his nonverbals screamed against his put-on confidence.

"If I've done something to make you question your trust in me," she said apprehensively, "just say so. I'm sure we can clear it up."

"Don't be ridiculous, Watson, there's nothing to clear up. My trust in you is implicit. You know it is."

"Then what the hell is with you?" she asked with mostly mock impatience.

"Elaborate," he urged her. "What do you mean 'with' me?"

"You're nervous," she told him.

"Hm," he grunted. "Am I?"

"Yes."

"More so than normal?"

"You're always awkward and typically twitchy, but you're rarely nervous so, yes, much 'more so than normal,'" she said as she air quoted him.

"What gave me away?"

"To name a few: clearing of the throat, avoiding eye contact and completely missing that I picked up a pencil from your desk," she listed then watched him glance suspiciously at his desk then at the pencil securing her hair. "Not to mention the fact that you didn't hear me coming down those creaky old stairs."

"And what would make me so 'nervous' in the first place?" he asked in a way that made Joan wonder if he actually even knew the answer himself.

After a few seconds of consideration, "The presence of drugs, paraphernalia or people related to that previous and abandoned part of your life" was her answer.

"Hmm. Yes, agreed. Those things do stir up a certain lack of trust in myself which, I suppose, one could describe as nervousness."

"But as much as you may not trust yourself," Joan informed him, "I trust you to be honest with me about any risks to your continued sobriety."

"Rightly so," Sherlock agreed.

She studied him a moment more. His melancholy had lifted weeks ago and she saw no symptoms of its return. Just to be sure, though, she asked, "Nothing new in the Moriarty case?"

"That case remains closed," he stated simply.

She didn't feel the need to push further. He'd said plenty over the past month. Moriarty murdered Irene. It mattered little that they were one in the same. He hated Moriarty; he mourned Irene. He felt stupid for playing her games; he was proud of Joan for "solving" her. Romantic love, he felt, was "the biggest contrivance of humanity," and he would never pursue it. You can't help what pursues you, though. That's what she'd told him. He'd offered no obvious signs of agreement, but he was contrary by nature so Joan counted his lack of argument as his full support.

"A woman!" she said just as the idea popped into her head.

"A what?" he answered with a snarly lip.

"A woman, Sherlock. You're not hiding one around here are you?"

"Only in plain sight," he replied.

Joan was tricked into looking around until it hit her that he was referring... to her. "Oh, please."

"Are you dubious about the fact that you are, indeed, a woman or merely that you're right here in front of me?"

"Neither individually, but together their meaning changes a little, doesn't it?" Joan replied as she leaned back and crossed one leg over the other

"Precisely, Watson. Overt meaning versus furtive intention. Text versus subtext. Literal versus-"

"Metaphor," she completed. "We're back to metaphor. I should have known."

"I did promise you a lesson."

Joan smiled to herself. Sherlock was something else. For the life of her, she wouldn't have been able to say if he'd taken her along a planned route or if he'd gotten her to the intended destination by way of a series of accidental wrong turns that somehow worked out just right. Either way they had, apparently, arrived.

"Metaphor," he proclaimed as he hopped up from his chair and paced in front of her, "is a description of a subject based on points of comparison to another seemingly unrelated object. All the world's a stage-"

"And all the men and women merely players."

His step stuttered as she interrupted his flow, but he recovered and continued. "While metaphor is useful to playwrights and poets because it provides thousands of options for conveying analogous meanings, it can also be used as an exploratory exercise during any investigation. By seeking parallels between two unrelated subjects, more connections may emerge."

Joan watched him walk the floor before her. He was better when he was kinetic. When his movement was more reserved-balling his fists, drumming his fingers, tapping his feet-the release of his ideas was likewise measured. When he could build momentum like this, his brilliance also compounded until he suddenly exploded with an unexpected conclusion.

"Well?" he demanded.

Joan stared across the room at him. Apparently, this conclusive explosion was left to her. Too bad she hadn't heard a word he'd said since he'd declared metaphor important to detective work.

Sherlock had stopped in his tracks and was glaring at her with the raised eyebrows and flared nostrils of a teacher who'd caught a daydreaming pupil in the act. Maybe she could offer that metaphor to make peace, but it seemed a little too literal in the moment.

"You're hopeless, Watson," he said as he sunk back into his chair without ever breaking his angry eye contact.

She noticed that behind his scowl was the glint of amused good humor so she tried to play off his own words. "You distracted me."

"I distracted you from myself?" he asked doubtfully.

"Your body distracted me from your words."

She loved it: that second when the bomb dropped and he was caught totally off guard. Then he reset his features from irritated to even.

"Are you hitting on me, Watson?" he asked coolly.

She laughed. To her recollection she had never even legitimately flirted with him, although who really knew what he found appealing? For all she knew, for him, arguing may have been foreplay. That certainly put a different perspective on the time they'd spent together.

"No, Sherlock," she dismissed, "I'm not hitting on you."

And if she ever did, he probably wouldn't have to ask. To say so would have crossed the professional line so she decided to clarify her purposefully misleading statement instead.

"You distract me because you move around here like a bee ready to sting. I can't listen to what you or anyone else says because you're too busy buzzing around. I get distracted by your body... in motion," she explained.

"Tsk, tsk," he said as he rose again then corrected, "I do not move like a bee. I am a bee."

"Huh?"

"We want metaphor, Watson, not simile."

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**Author's Note: **Thank you kindly for reading. Let me know if you're enjoying it or if you have suggestions!


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